Agile for your support department

A lot of companies out there are going through agile transformations, usually stopping investing when the have some agile development teams. But what if I tell you other teams and other departments can be agile too?

Don't be confined by the ideas that agile is only for development departments, or that it has no use being agile for your department. I promise you, every single department or team can use agile and become better through it.

Let's take a look at the support department, handling phone calls from customers with questions and bugs. I've often heard agile can't really be implemented there. Because they need to be available for phone calls during set times, so they need a tight schedule. But I beg to differ, we can make it work. So what agile practices can they pick up?

Weekly goals. Set a goal for each week, and not goals like ending the week below 30 open tickets. I want you to think bigger then numbers. You know this really upset customer? Who just had a horrible experience during that project? Well, by the end of Friday, that customer is going to be happy again. Now that's a goal, all we need is some actions to reach it. We're going to call the customer Monday to see if we can help them with anything at all. By Wednesday, we want all their open issues to be solved so that when we call them Friday to follow up, they're going to be happy.

Daily stand-up. Do a daily stand-up, discuss how far you are in reaching your goal. Does anybody need help reaching it? Is someone struggling with something else? Can Pete help Claire in the phone queue this morning so they create some room to sit down with development in the afternoon? Just make sure everybody attends. If your lines open at 9 AM, have this talk at 8:30 AM.

Review. I already mentioned this. By the end of Friday, do a follow up call to see if you've reached your goal. Ask for improvements on your process, on your product, on your interactions, on anything. Tell the customer you've set this goal on Monday, and genuinely ask if you've reached it on Friday. Imagine if a company would give you this much personal attention to make your life easier, wouldn't you appreciate it?

Retrospective. So, you've managed to make the customer happy, but Sandra had to work overtime to make it happen. What did you guys learn this week? How can you make it work more smoothly, how can each of you personally improve? Include the customers feedback into this conversation as well. Same as the stand-up, everybody needs to be included. If you're lines close at 5 PM, make sure you have a couple of drinks and a snack ready and have this talk finished at 5:30 PM.

Working like this will not only make you better at what you do, but it will also make it more fun. Now it's not just about answering the phone calls and solving issues within the agreed times. Now each week will bring a new challenge, and each new challenge will bring new motivation.

Each week will bring a new challenge, and each new challenge will bring new motivation

Next we'll be looking more in the future. You've got the weekly process handled, but now you want to have monthly or quarterly goals. And each week's goal must be a baby step towards the big goal. So following up on the example I used, a good quarterly goal to accompany it would be to want to score a 9 on the quarterly customer satisfaction survey.

I started out small, with the weekly goals, just to get you started. In the end you're going to have to think the other way around. Start with the big goals, and then find small goals that align with it.

So now you're following an agile process and taking baby steps to reach a bigger goal. Are you still going to tell me agile can't help a support department?

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